05/04/2014

Twelfth Night

Bell
Shakespeare, 2010

Photo
by Brett Boardman for Bell
Shakespeare.

This is the
production I credit with showing me just how beautiful and heartbreaking
Shakespeare can be, the production with which I ‘got’ Shakespeare on stage. Lee
Lewis’ Twelfth Night was set in the
aftermath of the recent Victorian bushfires; the characters emerged out of the
blackness, exhausted and covered in soot, and proceeded to tell each other a
story, assuming the identities and roles of the characters in Shakespeare’s
play. Set around a giant pile of clothes and cardboard boxes – a refuge centre,
we assumed – Lewis delighted in the playful theatricality of disguise, the
simple answers to switching identities at the drop of a hat, and the joy and
aliveness was never far away from the very tangible sorrow and heartbreak that
sits at the core of all Shakespearean tragedy. Ending with a beautifully
effervescent dance to Katrina & The Waves’ ‘Walking on Sunshine,’ it was
hard not to be moved by the panache, verve and relish in theatrical delight
with which the production revelled.